THE Met Office has promised to improve its forecasting for snow after an unexpected storm caused traffic problems across East Lancashire.


Blackburn with Darwen Council has claimed that the Met Office had "let it down" following the snowfall yesterday morning.


What started out as rain slowly turned into heavy snow during yesterday morning’s rush hour but gritters were not able to prepare roads for the wintery weather because no prior warning had been provided.


Jim Smith, the council’s environment boss, said that a warning would have helped the council prepare better.

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He said: “I am a great believer in global warming, what should have been rain became snow all of a sudden and yet again it was at a peak time when gritters can only go as fast as the car in front.


“We need to be prepared for anything over the next decade or so because I think we may get instances like this quite often.


“There was a lot of traffic on the roads but we got the gritters out as quick as we could.


“I’m not annoyed at the Met Office, however an earlier warning would have been useful because gritting was difficult with all the traffic.”


The snow caused some accidents including one collision between a large goods vehicle and a car in Burnley Road, Bacup, and in Grane Road near Haslingden – both of which caused roads to be temporarily blocked.

 
Lancashire County Council put gritters out yesterday afternoon and claimed that it had received no information about snowfall but did everything it could to prevent and fix any issues.


The National Farmers Union also said the unusual spring weather had affected lamb flocks, with some having to be born in terrible conditions.


A spokesman for the Met Office said: “Although there was mention in our forecasts of wintry showers over high ground, clearly the forecast fell short of the high standards expected from the Met Office and the snow caused disruption to travel during rush hour.


“Yesterday morning’s snow is a good example of how challenging it can be to forecast snow in the UK.


“On this occasion, the intensity and duration of the rain lead to cold air high in the atmosphere being pulled closer to the surface, which in turn resulted in snow at lower levels than expected.


“There is more about the challenge of forecasting snow here.


“We can use this morning as a case study to help improve our forecasting for snow and we’ll be working with the local councils across Lancashire to improve the forecast process.”